The small boat of my life
swamped with waves of regret,
I’m grateful to be charmed
by a pewter and glass wine decanter
shaped like a haughty rooster.
Floundering, drowning,
I treasure an absurd fondness
for the table’s cluster of marble grapes,
the wood stem cut
from some gnarled, obdurate vine.
Storms leave me indebted
to two bronze sages sitting on my desk,
reading books, each day divinely tranquil.
Let me put it another way: it’s spring
and outside the big window
a heavy, biting snow is falling.
But I don’t worry about the daffodils—
their fierce green shoots
know how to play this game.
Storms die and pass and soon
they’ll sound their yellow trumpets.
—
Richard Jones is the author of many books of poems, most recently Passport (Green Linden Press, 2025). He is also the editor of the literary journal Poetry East and has curated its many anthologies, including The Last Believer in Words, Paris, Bliss, and Origins.
